Glenn Frey, Eagles guitarist, dies at 67

Glenn Frey co-founded the Eagles, one of the most commercially successful bands of the last half-century, and left behind a trove of indelible melodies including 17 Top-40 hits.

He died Monday at 67 in New York. His website confirmed that the singer had been ill for months and died of complications from rheumatoid arthritis, colitis and pneumonia. In November, the Eagles canceled their scheduled appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors on Dec. 6 when the band announced that Frey’s intestinal issues would “require major surgery and a lengthy recovery period.”

The Eagles sold more than 120 million records and were one of the most dominant bands of the 1970s with hits such as “Take It Easy,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “Take it to the Limit,” “Best of My Love,” “New Kid in Town” and “Heartache Tonight,” most co-written by Frey and his songwriting partner with the Eagles, singer-drummer Don Henley.

Frey was born in 1948 in Detroit and played in several bands in Michigan in the ’60s. He performed on the session for Bob Seger’s first national hit, “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” before moving to California to be with his girlfriend. He soon jumped into the burgeoning country rock scene as part of the backing band for another rising star, singer Linda Ronstadt, in 1970.

The band also included the core of what would become the Eagles — Henley, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon. They were each paid $200 a week and began developing their chemistry on the road behind Ronstadt. When they got off tour, they signed their own deal to record for Asylum Records and David Geffen, the kingpin of the California scene.

Frey shared an apartment with Jackson Browne, with whom he wrote “Take it Easy,” the Eagles breakthrough single in 1972. Frey sang lead vocals, and he and Henley would eventually dominate the band’s singing and songwriting duties. Nonetheless, the other band members played a crucial role, with their harmony vocals and as part of an evolving sound that at first edged toward country and bluegrass and then later embraced rock.

The Frey-Henley songwriting team found its footing on the band’s second album, the song cycle “Desperado,” which cemented the Eagles’ reputation as country rockers. They became roommates and frequently wrote head to head, the songs spinning off their personal lives and conversations.

“That was a very good time for us — ’74, ’75, ’76 — the bulk of our best work was written in those years, and we were either living together or in Laurel Canyon five blocks from each other,” Frey once said.

The Eagles sound expanded with the arrival of lead guitarist Don Felder and later Joe Walsh, which led to its crowning achievement, the “Hotel California” album in 1976. It sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Yet by the time of “The Long Run” three years later, the band was splintering, and Frey and the others pursued solo careers.

Frey had hits with “Smuggler’s Blues” and “You Belong to the City” and also landed some acting roles, most notably in the TV series “Miami Vice.”

All along he denied that the Eagles would ever play again. The ill will was just too great.

“There is not going to be an Eagles reunion,” Frey told the Tribune in 1992. “Except for the incredible amount of money that would be there to be made, there's nothing else about it that appeals to me. I looked into it, but it just wasn't going to be any fun.”

Two years later, the Eagles were back. In a move that presaged many of the lucrative reunion tours that would dominate the last three decades of arena rock, the Eagles got back together to play their greatest hits. Never regarded as a particularly dynamic live band, the Eagles nonetheless charged more than $100 for the most expensive seats — double the going rate for most big shows at the time — and accrued $140 million in tour revenue in 1994-95. The tour had to be briefly postponed when Frey battled intestinal issues.

The Eagles returned in 2007 with “The Long Road Out of Eden,” their first album of original material since 1979, and a three-year tour that drew 2 million fans and $250 million in revenue.

The success at the box office wasn’t so much about the Eagles’ new music, but rather the songs they recorded in the ’70s that remained staples of commercial radio and a generation’s life ever since. In “Eagles 1972-1999: Selected Works,” a box set of the Eagles’ career, Frey acknowledged as much: “While the band broke up in 1980, our music continued without us. ... It was becoming increasingly apparent to me that no matter where I went or what I did, for the rest of my life I would always be an Eagle. The band was not going away.”